


January 17th, 2019

by simthemuse



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Merlin (Merlin), Immortality, Post-Battle of Camlann, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Reunions, he just has to wait 1500 years for it, merlin finally gets the hug he deserves, sea urchins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 03:04:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19821238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simthemuse/pseuds/simthemuse
Summary: "And yet, as is the nature of man - and the nature of Merlin in particular - no one is capable of being miserable forever. You might be trapped in a long, hollow tunnel of angst and pain, but eventually you’ll work your way out. It might take days, months, centuries - but no state of being is permanent. Not even for immortal entities of debatable species like Merlin.Of course, this goes both ways. Happiness is just as impermanent as grief, and every time you're happy is just another reminder that it won't last."





	January 17th, 2019

In Merlin’s opinion - and he is the only person in the world with a valid opinion on the matter - the worst part of immortality is the happiness. 

One might think it strange for happiness to be a bad thing, and even Merlin himself doesn’t quite understand it. But look at it this way: you know, inevitably, everyone you love is going to die. And every interaction you have with them is coloured by the fact that one day that smile will fade, and one day those eyes will grow dim, and you can only wonder if it’ll happen in your arms or if you’ll be too late to say goodbye. You beg for one more song, one more dance, one more kiss - but the dead cannot answer your pleas.

And yet, as is the nature of man - and the nature of Merlin in particular - no one is capable of being miserable forever. You might be trapped in a long, hollow tunnel of angst and pain, but eventually you’ll work your way out. It might take days, months, _centuries_ \- but no state of being is permanent. Not even for immortal entities of debatable species like Merlin.

Of course, this goes both ways. Happiness is just as impermanent as grief, and every time you're happy is just another reminder that it won't last. 

So even though you look at a person’s face and can only imagine how much their lifeless corpse will bother you, you also can’t help but laugh at their jokes and buy them birthday presents and sit under the stars with them, laying there for hours and contemplating the future.

And then they die, and you grieve, and every memory you shared is another weapon your broken heart uses against you.

At first, Merlin wants to be miserable. He does. It would be easier to sit in his room and fill his head with nothing but thoughts of Arthur’s death and how much it hurts him. It would be easier to stop eating and smiling, maybe even get mad at Arthur for leaving him if he feels bold enough. 

Though pain is easier, it isn’t possible. There is a kingdom to protect, a Gaius to take care of, and a Gwen to advise. Sometimes he hates himself for it, how he only needs a month to mourn before he gets back on his feet. Sometimes he wonders if he’s disrespecting Arthur’s death by being happy, if he’s being a terrible friend for his ability to smile without Arthur by his side. 

And maybe that’s true. Maybe he’s a terrible friend and a detestable monster, and maybe the reason he’s able to let go is because he is just such a loveless beast that he never cared enough about Arthur in the first place. Those paranoid thoughts fill his darkest dreams, alongside a cacophony of villagers all shouting “Monster!” and vying for his execution.

But then Merlin will think of a joke and Arthur won’t be there to share it with, so he’ll go to Gwen and her face will split into a hysterical grin, and she’ll say, “Thanks, Merlin, I needed a good laugh today”. And though he hates himself for being happy, there’s not much he can do about it.

Happiness is like a double-edged sword, especially for the death-impaired. Because when they light Percival’s funeral pyre four years after Camlann, Merlin’s head is filled with all the jokes and heart-to-hearts they shared. The happy memories make him only wish there were more of them, and it hurts to think about Percival smiling because he knows Percival will never smile again. That’s the problem with happiness, you know - too much of it and you get addicted.

Percival’s martyrdom is one too many deaths for Leon, and for a good six months he retreats into a shell of himself. Gwen and Merlin do all they can to coax him back - and they do, eventually, but it’s slow progress.

Leon’s eyes gaze emptily out the window, hands quivering as he weeps without tears. Merlin can only question if one day his immortality will crush him and turn him catatonic just like Leon.

Gaius’s death is a sharp blow, and Merlin spends almost as long mourning him as he spent mourning Arthur. But then he picks himself back up, because he knows Gaius wouldn’t want him to wallow this way. 

Leon eventually returns to duty, but later retires, and takes up a position as Gwen’s First Advisor. Merlin had been offered the position of such, but he insisted on being the queen’s servant - serving her like he had served Arthur before her. And while Gwen had been eager to promote him, she soon found that she couldn’t bear to have anyone but him by her side at all times. Yes, Merlin being her servant suits them both quite nicely.

Merlin’s the one who heals her heart, after all. He’s the one who holds Gwen as she cries the nights away, who sleeps beside her because she can’t bear an empty bed, who tells her jokes when her eyes grow solemn. 

Leon dies fifteen years after Camlann. He dies of an assassination attempt, and Merlin doesn’t get there in time to heal him. His magic may have flourished since Gwen lifted the ban, and with it his healing skills, but there are some things not even Emrys can fix.

_“All your magic and you can’t save my life.”_

Arthur, prat of prats, has a special way of haunting him with those final words.

But Leon dies smiling, at least. Merlin’s holding him and weeping, because dammit he can’t lose yet another friend. Leon is crying and afraid at first, afraid both of death and of leaving Gwen and Merlin behind. Leon knows what it’s like to grieve, and he doesn’t want to put his best friends through that because of him. 

Merlin, despite the pain in his chest and the tears streaming down his face, smiles and says, “Say hello to the clotpole for me.” 

Leon lets out a breathless chuckle, and it just barely distracts him from the pain. It keeps his mind occupied and his heart happy for just a moment, and no one should be sad when they die, so Merlin gets an idea.

He takes out his waterskin and places it in Leon’s bloodied, tremulous grasp. “Give this to Gwaine. I don’t imagine they’ve got any good taverns in the afterlife, and it’s a crime to make him stay sober this long.” The waterskin doesn’t even have anything remotely alcoholic - just water - but it’s the joke that counts.

Leon’s final words are not words at all, but laughter. He laughs and laughs, even though the joke wasn’t that funny, and then the laughter grows steadily quieter, and then his body becomes a corpse in Merlin’s arms. 

Merlin gingerly sweeps his hands over Leon’s eyes and closes them. “Goodbye, old friend.”

During Arthur, Percival, and Gaius’s deaths, Gwen had been almost inconsolable. She had the tendency to lock herself in her room, allowing entrance to no one but Merlin. And for a few days, it would be Merlin’s job to help oversee matters of state and fill her in on everything that happened in her absence, and do everything in his power to bring back strong, cheerful, powerful Gwen. 

At Leon’s death, she is simply numb.

Watching her heart harden, watching the shutters close on her emotions, it sends shivers down his spine. Merlin wonders if one day, centuries into the future, he’ll be just like her: distant and aloof, hiding himself under a mountain of trauma and refusal to recover. 

She takes another two years to warm up again, and Merlin is tempted to throw a banquet the first time she smiles. 

Gwen takes in a ward. A patrol led by Sir Lamorak find a boy held captive by some slavers, just a wispy little orphan with unruly blonde hair that not even Merlin’s strongest spells can tame. His eyes are a poignant, crystalline green, and it takes seven and a half months before he trusts them enough to start speaking. His voice sounds like if Lancelot were a very, very small child.

They call him Loholt Pendragon, since the slavers took him when he was too young to remember his real name, and Gwen brings him almost everywhere. Loholt shows a slight talent for magic, no more than lighting candles and blowing wind in people’s faces, but he takes delight in his lessons with Merlin.

Again, Merlin loathes himself for being happy, but he takes delight in the lessons as well.

Gwen is fifty-eight and Loholt is twenty when Aithusa is killed by poachers. Merlin and his dragon had a rocky relationship from the start, being on different sides of the war, but they bonded over their shared losses at Camlann. Dare he say it, he actually likes Aithusa more than Kilgharrah. At least Aithusa gives him straight answers. 

But a group of greedy sorcerers catch her, rip her apart, and sell her scales on the black market. That’s how Merlin finds out what happened to her: one night he wakes up and senses her absence, spends months searching tirelessly for her despite knowing in his heart that she’s dead, and eventually stumbles upon a street merchant selling an achingly familiar dragon hide. 

He burns the merchant’s stall to the ground and takes the hide with him. He doesn’t know or care if the merchant himself survives. 

Knowing Aithusa wouldn’t want her body abused in such a manner, he destroys all the trinkets made from her scales.

Well, most of them. There’s a wrist band made of white dragon hide, and though it disgusts him that it exists, he can’t bear to part with the only thing he has left of Aithusa.

This time, it’s Gwen who comforts Merlin. She comes to him as he lingers on the edge of the parapets, never one for propriety. Her cream dress bunches and crinkles under her as she sits beside him. 

He wrinkles his nose. “If you mess up your dress, I’m the one who has to clean it up, you know.”

“We can make George do it,” Gwen says, and they both laugh airily.

“Better yet,” he jokes. “We can make Loholt do it. Teach him a bit of responsibility.”

Her old eyes twinkle with mirth and mock shame. “Yes, I’m afraid we may be spoiling him a bit too much. Perhaps now you have another prat to keep in line.”

Merlin laughs, and Gwen laughs, and the sounds of their laughter can be heard all the way to Nemeth and beyond. And while he hates himself for being happy with Aithusa’s death still fresh in his mind, he can’t bring himself to stop. 

When the laughter dies down, leaving amiable silence between them, she places a hand on his shoulder. She speaks no words, but the weight of her presence says everything. _“Are you alright?”_

In exchange for a verbal response, Merlin wraps a spindly, gangly arm around her shoulders and pulls her close to him. He doesn’t need to open his mouth for her to understand the meaning: _“I will be.”_

And the two of them grow old together. Well, Gwen does anyway. Another part of Merlin’s immortal curse means that he does not age or change, aside from the occasional new scar. So while he can celebrate his sixty-fifth birthday and still look like Loholt’s younger brother, he is also tormented with the sight of Gwen slowly aging without him.

He considers using an aging spell to make it seem more natural, to keep people from stopping and staring, so he doesn’t feel like his presence is taunting Gwen with a youth she cannot have.

She smiles and pats his hand, and says, “I promised you would never have to hide again, Merlin.”

* * *

Gwen turns seventy-one, and while the council is clamoring for her to hand over regency to the far younger and springier Loholt, she plans to hold onto her crown until her dying breath. She’s a good queen, no matter her physicality, and it seems not even old age can keep her from running Camelot like a tight ship.

At the celebratory banquet of her seventy-third birthday, a demure young woman approaches with a brass sphere as a birthday gift. She claims that magic allows the sphere to speak under the weight of tears, granting the one who is crying whatever knowledge they seek.

A week later, long after the fireplace is spent, Gwen and Merlin sit on her bed and debate about what knowledge they should ask for.

“We could ask about Loholt’s reign,” Gwen offers. His heart always clenches at the weathered shrill of her aging voice. “Or if Katherine and Edgar really did have a tryst in the broom closet.”

“They did!” Merlin exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “I swear I saw it with my own two eyes.”

“Katherine and _Edgar_ , Merlin. Katherine and Leonard I can believe, but _Edgar_? That’s the most absurd claim you’ve ever made - and that includes the woodworm excuse.”

“It’s not _that_ hard to believe, I’m sure he’s got at least _one_ good quality.”

She just chuckles and rolls her eyes. 

A few moments later, Merlin is struck with an epiphany. Voice heavy in a way only someone who has loved and lost can pull off, he says, “What about Arthur?”

Her face tightens. “What about him?”

“Before he died, Kilgharrah told me that one day Arthur would return when Albion needs him most.”

“And you want to know when that day is,” Gwen surmises, and he nods. “Clever.”

So there they sit, brass sphere between them, both of them using memories of Arthur to fuel their tears as they weep onto its smooth surface. 

At first, Merlin wonders if it even worked, or if that lady had scammed them. But then the sphere vibrates and hums, and Gwen almost drops it in surprise. Before she can, he pulls his palms up under hers to steady her. She flashes him an appreciative smile before returning her focus to the orb.

The sphere’s otherworldly hums twist and contort into different sounds, like warning bells and ocean waves and a symphony of other noises neither of them can identify. Then the sounds melt together, weaving into something that sounds like words.

_“On the seventeenth of January, in the year two-thousand and nineteen, the Round Table shall reunite once more.”_

The orb stops vibrating and humming. Merlin blinks his eyes, and when he opens them again the sphere has crumbled into ashes between his and Gwen’s fingers. 

“Two-thousand nineteen,” Gwen says, eyes wide and jaw slack in astonishment. “That’s...that’s over fifteen hundred years away!”

Merlin, meanwhile, is hung up on a different fact altogether. “The Round Table shall reunite, it said. The _Round Table_ , Gwen. Arthur’s not the only one coming back! _Everyone’s_ coming back, Gwen! Do you know what this means?”

Her eyes are wet and old as she smiles sadly at him, but _he_ can’t find it in his heart to be sad. This is wonderful news! Not only will he be seeing Arthur again one day, but all his other friends too! Lancelot, Elyan, Gwaine, Percival, Gaius, Leon - everyone will be coming back to him. This endless stretch of loss and emptiness before him, doesn’t feel quite so endless anymore.

Merlin pulls her into a sobbing hug as he exclaims, “I won’t be alone forever!”

Of course, even though he won’t be alone _forever_ , 1,542 years is still a hell of a long time.

* * *

Loholt marries Mithian’s daughter Rhiged at the age of thirty-one, and they produce twins - Arthur II and Elaine - when he is thirty-three. Arthur II, whom Merlin affectionately calls Wart, is a shy but studious child who inherited Gwen and Loholt’s mutual temperament, but Mithian’s likeness. Elaine takes after Wart’s namesake far more than Wart does, and she grows up to be a rather bossy yet selfless girl with soft blonde locks. 

Everyone waits with baited breath for the day Gwen finally hands over regency to Loholt, as some of the stuffier nobles are fed up with having a female ruler for this long, but that day does not come for a long while. 

It does come eventually, though. When Gwen is eighty-four and Merlin is seventy-nine, she dies. It’s old age that gets her in the end. She grows steadily weaker over the last years of her life, while Merlin’s unabating youth grants him energy in spades, and he wishes he could give her just a bit of his strength. Just enough to get her a few more years. Just so she can live long enough to see Elaine finally kiss that serving girl she’s been pining over.

When Gwen becomes too weak to get out of bed, she reluctantly passes regency to Loholt, and Merlin refuses to leave her side. 

“I’m so...sorry,” she rasps. Her hands are bony and frail, her age-spotted skin sags in his grasp, and her fingers tremble as he interweaves his own between them. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he insists. He’s held so many people as they died, but it doesn’t get any easier each time. Tears still well up in his eyes and turn his vision murky, and he wishes he could push them all away because they’re tainting what may be the last sight he’ll ever have of Gwen while she’s alive. That is, before she comes back in 1500 years.

“I’m...le...leaving you. You….ll be alone.”

He shrugs. “Hey, you’ll be coming back. Do you remember the day?”

Gwen’s brown eyes are unfocused and hazy, tears flooding down her delicate, wrinkled cheeks. “Jan...uary...s...seventeenth...two thousand and...nine...teen.”

He leans in to brush a few silver locks away from her face. “Don’t be late.”

She smiles at him. “P...promise.”

He lifts up his pinky before her. “Pinky promise?” She gives him a questioning look. “I-it’s something Wart and I came up with. See -” He takes her hand and locks her pinky around his own. “- nothing breaks a pinky promise. It’s the most formidable vow known to man.”

Her wheezing breaths come out in the form of a weak, tinkling chuckle. “Al...right. P...pinky promise.”

They hold their pinkies together like that, eyes locked on one another as they try to wordlessly communicate every emotion between them. And then her eyes begin to droop, and her hands fall limp, and her head rolls onto her shoulder.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there beside her, holding her hands and weeping into her lifeless palms. But when he does finally get to his feet and prepare to deliver the grave news to Loholt, he kisses her on the forehead.

“Don’t be late,” he whispers.

Gwen is one of the harder deaths to cope with, but he manages. He always does. And as always, he hates himself for how easy it is to move on and keep going. He hates himself for retaining his ability to be happy.

Loholt can’t take the loss of his adoptive mother, and Rhiged steps in as his regent. All of Camelot wonders if the kingdom has been enchanted to only receive female rulers. 

Rhiged pleads with Merlin to use his magic to help Loholt recover from his catatonic state, but as much as it pains him to say it, nothing but time and care can heal a broken heart. 

He’s ready to stand there by his surrogate nephew’s side, to help him as he helped Leon and Gwen, but then Loholt is found with his wrists slit and a tear-stained letter on his bed. 

Before there can even be a funeral, Rhiged banishes Merlin from Camelot. She screams at him that if he had only used his magic to fix Loholt like she wanted, then maybe he would still be alive. 

As he departs, he gives his magic book to Elaine - she always had a fascination with the subject - and his neckerchief to Wart. 

“Promise I’ll see you again?” asks Wart, grey eyes afraid and tearful.

Merlin kneels down and sticks out his pinky, which Wart hooks his finger around. “Pinky promise.”

He spares both twins a warm hug, tells them to be strong but to never be afraid of asking for help, and vanishes into the night.

Merlin never does make good on his pinky promise to Wart. Rhiged’s stone-cold tyranny shakes the kingdom to its core, and a furious peasant uprising sees them all dead within the year.

The peasant uprising doesn’t care enough about their former tyrant or her family to give them graves. They just set the bodies on fire and carry on with their lives, as Camelot crumbles into near-anarchy. 

Merlin builds two little rock pillars to commemorate Wart and Elaine. In a fit of hysterics he almost cuts off his finger out of shame. 

When the Saxons invade a politically compromised Camelot, Merlin is living the life of a hermit next to Avalon Lake and doesn’t become aware of the invasion until twenty years after the fact. It gives him another reason to hate himself.

He tries being miserable at first. He tries sitting and wallowing and laying in bed all day, keeping his face in a solid frown and refusing to let the tears leave his eyes.

Merlin vows never to be happy again, or to love again. It hurts too much, the fleeting mortality of man. Happiness is a drug, an addiction, and he needs to cut himself off. 

He needs to stop feeling.

But after a few years of depressive lethargy, Merlin has a dream of the day he pulled Arthur’s trousers down in front of the whole court, and wakes up laughing. 

He hates himself for laughing. Everyone around him is miserable, everyone he knows is dead or dying, and yet here he is. Happy. It’s disgusting and disgraceful, and if he has it in himself to smile despite the deaths of his friends, then perhaps he doesn’t care about them as much as he should.

A monster, he’s a monster. He’s a cold, apathetic, unfeeling monster, and if Arthur could see him now he’d be ashamed.

Even so, it’s a good feeling. Call him an addict, but happiness is one drug he can't quit (no matter how hard he tries). It will be his guilty pleasure, something to indulge in because it’s simply in his nature to smile, and then immediately despise himself for.

So he gets up, shaves his beard and cuts his hair, goes to the nearest village to buy some new clothes, and gets a fresh start. He’s got 1,429 years until his friends come home. That’s 1,429 years to prepare for whatever Albion-shattering cataclysm is worth summoning a dead king. 

Merlin travels. He learns new languages and cultures, meets new people, studies new crafts, tries new things. He explores the world to its fullest extent, reaps it of every bit of history and life he can possibly learn, and he smiles. He makes new friends, forms new memories, and then when they die he hates himself for caring about them in the first place. 

And above all, he waits. Soon it will be January 17th, 2019, and he shall wait no longer. 

* * *

“Today’s the day,” says Merlin, face splitting into an indestructible grin. “Today’s the day, today’s the _day_! Are you ready, George?”

George - named after the most boring person Merlin has ever met in his life - is a red sea urchin kept in a big aquarium tank in his living room. Having a sea urchin as a pet may seem unorthodox, but these things can live for 200 years and quite frankly he needs something with a bit of longevity. He tried cats for a while, and dogs, and even snakes and birds, but so far George has remained his most faithful companion. 

Ever since that spiky little bastard wormed its way into his heart back in 1899, it has become his best friend. People give him weird looks when he says that, but honestly he’s too old to care what people think.

“Yes, yes, I know you’re excited to meet Arthur, but you really shouldn’t be leaving your tank too much.”

George, in typical George fashion, says nothing. And Merlin, in typical Merlin fashion, pretends otherwise.

“ _Yes,_ all the rooms are set up. One room for everyone in the Round Table, all upstairs, with closets and wardrobes filled with clothes all in the proper sizes. Oh! George, did I ever show you the little name plaques I put on all the doors?”

George says nothing.

“No matter, you’ll see them eventually. I spent, like, a full week putting those things together.”

Still nothing.

“Of course I did it without magic! What do you think I am, some kind of cheater?”

Apparently George has made some remarkable, unheard comment, because Merlin clasps his hands to his chest and gasps in mock offense. “George! You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

George responds with pointed silence.

Hanging his head in defeat, Merlin says, “Yeah, alright, you’re right. I _should_ get going soon. It’s nearly midnight, and I was never given a specific time they would arrive, was I.”

Merlin runs through the whole house and makes sure everything is in order for his future guests. He can’t have them thinking he’s spent the past millennium living like a slob, now can he?

The refrigerator is full, there’s plenty of breakfast sausages for Arthur, and the dishes are clean. Everyone’s got their own rooms upstairs with name plaques, full wardrobes, and personalized room decor, the beds are made, and the shelves are dusted. The floors have been mopped, the carpets have been vacuumed, the table’s been polished, the hallway light has been fixed, all bathroom toiletries have been stocked up, and he even folded the hand towels into cute little patterns like you see in the hotels. 

His house is fit for a king. Hell, maybe even fit for an Arthur. 

But if Merlin himself is fit to host the literal Round Table of legend...that’s another story.

He pokes his head out the bedroom door and shouts down the hall. He's bought twenty outfits to choose from for this occasion, but he still can't decide what he wants to wear. “George! Casual or formal?” He pauses for George’s imaginary reply. “Semi-casual, smart. Thanks George!”

Merlin fits himself into his cleanest white button-up, a blue vest, and adds in a red scarf just for the sake of nostalgia. His dragon-scale bracelet remains on his wrist where it’s always been, and he kisses it for good luck. 

Merlin takes a good long look in the mirror, just to spy for any blemishes or out-of-place hairs. He got his hair cut two weeks ago, but he gives the ends a bit of a trim anyway and he spends about ten minutes mussing up his fringe - trying to find a decent balance between neat and stylish. 

He pulls out his nicest bottle of cologne, a fancy Dior Homme he got from a white elephant gift exchange in Monte Carlo. He doesn’t normally attend high-end functions like that, though. Merlin had only been in Monte Carlo in the first place because he was invited as the plus-one to Oliver Ritkins, a playboy millionaire stereotype he’d befriended during his brief stint as a paparazzi photographer. Ah, the good old days.

Alright, how is everything looking? 

House: clean.

George’s tank: clean.

Rooms: decorated to fit each knight’s tastes. 

Patio: swept and power-washed. 

Garden: weeded, watered, and ready to go. 

Merlin: physically put together but otherwise an emotional disaster.

He slaps himself a few times. “Pull yourself together, Merlin! You’ve been waiting your whole life for this moment, no chickening out _now_.” He glares at the aquarium, and at the urchin in particular. “Not helping, George."

He slips into his best coat, which ends up being a leather jacket with collar studs, gives himself one final look-over in the mirror, and heads out the door. It’s 11:49 PM by the time he steps out into the cold January morning air, so his neighbours aren't awake to criticize his eccentricities like they usually do. 

“Oh!” Merlin slaps his forehead. “I forgot my shoes!”

So he runs back in, laces up the pair of converse he bought a three months ago specifically for this event, and runs back out the door.

Okay, take two. This time around, he actually makes it to his car. It's a red 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire with a convertible hood currently pulled up to protect the seats from snow. It’s in mint condition, due entirely to magic. 

Just as he glides his key into the ignition, his gut sinks with one horrific detail he seems to have overlooked.

There are nine members of the Round Table, including himself.

There are four seats in his Oldsmobile Starfire.

“ _Crap!_ ” He hits himself in the temple a few times, face scrunched up in self deprecation and shame. “ _Stupid, stupid, stupid_ ! What to do, what to do, what to..." He chuckles under his breath as an idea hits him. “Oh. Magic. _Duh_.” 

With a wave of his hand and a flash of gold in his eyes (for he outgrew the need for spells back in the 13th century), the metal of the car warps and stretches and expands, creating three new rows of seats in the back and extending the hood. 

One, two, three...yes, ten seats ought to be more than enough. If anyone asks how the hell his Oldsmobile Starfire turned into a makeshift limousine overnight, he is under no legal obligation to explain himself.

It’ll probably be Mrs. Russel who ask him first. Of course _Mrs. Russel_ needs to mind her own damn business once in a while - think less about what exotic plants Merlin does or doesn’t put in his front yard, and more about the fact that Mr. Russel is shagging his physical therapist behind her back.

How does Merlin know more about the Russel family’s marital affairs than the Russels themselves?

Well, a magician never reveals his secret.

The ten-minute drive to Avalon Lake is a long one, especially since the added bulk to his car means he’s got to be extra careful around intersections. So his ten-minute drive turns into a twelve-minute drive, and he silently berates himself for the lost time. Arthur and the others could already be waiting for him at the lake, dangit! Who knows where they might all wander off to without him?

Merlin parks his car on the side of the road about a block away from the beach, hoists a duffel bag of spare clothes and snacks over his shoulder, and begins his trek to the lake. It’s cold so he casts a quick spell to keep him dry and warm, and sets himself up under his favourite tree.

It’s a hawthorn, simply because he loves the irony (what with the legend of Merlin getting trapped in a tree of the same kind). He’s the one who planted it, after all, back in 1723. 

Was 1723 really 296 years ago? It feels like only yesterday he was fighting with James Tucket in the Revolutionary War (although for the life of him he can’t remember which side he was on). Time sure does fly, doesn't it? Mortals think it’s a curse, but Merlin can only view it as a blessing. 

Merlin unfolds and spreads out the quilt his coworker Jessica Thorpe made for his “27th birthday” last month. It was technically his _1,569th_ birthday, but you can’t exactly fit that many candles on a cake. It’s got red and blue and grey patches all over it, and the colour scheme is actually a bit garish - but he quite frankly doesn’t care. He loves it so much he’d almost let them bury him in it, if he could actually die. 

So he sits there on the quilt, eyes trained steadily on the rolling of the waves before him. Each time the water creeps up on the sand and recedes back out, his heart skips a beat. Maybe this time, maybe this time, maybe this time.

He sits there, still as a statue and impatient grin equally unmoving. It doesn’t matter how long he must sit like this, because it will all pay off in the end. Arthur and Gwen and Gaius and the knights and _Arthur_ will all come back to him. And his fifteen hundred years of loneliness will end, at long last.

The sun rises. It’s 7:58 AM. That’s fine. He’s got a long day ahead of him yet. It’s only been eight hours.

Eight hours turn into nine hours.

Nine hours turn into twelve.

Merlin checks the tattoo on his inner forearm. It’s simple black ink that reads “January 17th, 2019”. He had it inked on back in the...1600s? 1500s, yes it was the 1500s. He had it marked on his body so that no matter what happened, no matter where he went, he would always remember when to come back to Avalon Lake so he could reunite with his friends. His _family._

Yes, the tattoo still says January 17th, 2019. So he’s not gone _completely_ mad yet. He checks his phone. Yes, it says January 17th, 2019 there too. So he’s got the day right. This is the day the Round Table reunites, that’s what that brass sphere told him.

Was he too late? Did the sphere lie? Did...did _Kilgharrah_ lie?

No, Arthur’s called the Once and Future King for a reason. Camelot was the _Once_ , and now it’s time for the _Future_. 

“Come on, Arthur,” he grumbles. The timestamp on his phone reads 9:24 PM. It’s dark outside again, and threatening to snow - although not yet cold enough to freeze the lake. A layer of fog condenses over everything, but it’s not yet thick enough to obscure the lake completely. “Where the hell _are_ you, you prat?”

10:00 PM.

10:33 PM.

11:41 PM.

11:55 PM.

11:56 PM.

11:57 PM.

11:58 PM.

11:59 PM.

He puts his phone away. He can’t look. Focus on the lake. Don’t think about the fact that January 17th, 2019 is dead and gone, and Arthur still isn’t here. Don’t think about how it’s 12:01, 12:02, 12:03…

This can’t be it. This can’t be all that’s in store for him. He can’t have waited fifteen hundred _bloody_ years just to get - to get _snubbed_! 

Merlin rushes to his feet. “Arthur, what the bloody hell is taking so long?!” He kicks a rock into the lake and roars. “Augh! I get stung by serkets, tortured by witches - I wait fifteen hundred years for _your_ ungrateful ass to rise out of a _bloody_ lake, and _this_ is the thanks I get?!” 

He kicks and screams and thrashes around. He overturns the basket of snacks, he chucks all the spare clothes into the lake, and shrieks out every explicit, curse, and insult he’s spent the last 1500 years accumulating.

And it was for nothing. Fifteen hundred years, and it was all built up to nothing. The lake does not spit out any confused, chainmail-clad warriors, the sky does not rend asunder and drop an undead king from the heavens, and the magic roiling in his gut certainly does not settle. 

Merlin is about to throw one more thing, but stops himself when he realizes what’s in his hand.

It’s...it’s his necklace. It’s got both Arthur and Gwen’s wedding rings, reaped from their corpses for safe keeping until they came back home to him. Just two simple golden bands, no fancy diamonds or jewels or engravings, dangling from the silver chain that had never once left his neck until now.

The gold catches in the light of the streetlights, shining and glittering in the callused palm of his hand. The cold wind blows the chain around as it hangs from his fingertips, frosty chainlinks grazing the back of his hand as it jostles in the breeze. 

His eyes grow misty and wet, and he collapses on the sand. The lakewater is icy as it laps against his knees, but the tears streaming down his face are colder. So cold, in fact, that he fears they might freeze permanently to his cheeks. Perhaps it would be better that way, if he just freezes up completely and never moves or thinks or feels or _hopes_ again. 

“I…” his throat closes up, his voice just as frozen and broken as the rest of him. He clutches the rings against his chest and immortally beating heart. “I just don’t want to be _alone_ anymore.”

Destiny is too cruel to heed his cries, and the universe is too unfeeling to listen in the first place. So he sits there, weeping loudly to a world that’s deaf to his pain.

Well, not _completely_ deaf.

“Hey! Over here!”

Merlin’s head groggily snaps up towards the sound of shouting and the sight of flashlight beams. In the distance, at the hilled entrance to the lake area, are eight shadowy blobs. Three of them are holding flashlights, and all of them are shouting, “Merlin! _Merlin!_ ”

Merlin.

That’s a name he hasn’t heard in a long, long time.

How could these people possibly know a name like that? How could they possibly know he’d be waiting here on this day, in this place? Awfully coincidental.

Maybe it’s not a coincidence at all.

No, he can’t believe that. He can’t believe they’re back, only to be crushed and defeated and have all his hopes burnt alive like a sorcerer condemned. It’s a coincidence, that’s all. A cruel, heartless prank.

As the blobs grow closer, more physical details sift through the darkness of night. The blobs turn into shapes, the shapes turn into silhouettes, and the silhouettes turn into…

No. It can’t be.

Neat blonde hair, square jaw, delightful blue eyes, broad shoulders. But there is no crown haloing his head, nor armour guarding his body, nor a red cloak fluttering behind him in the breeze. Instead, there’s a red hoodie and an impossibly cheerful laugh. 

“Merlin!” he shouts, but it isn’t the way he shouted when he was mad or impatient or couldn’t find that stupid manservant of his. It’s the way he shouted when they were separated and reunited in the Valley of the Fallen Kings. 

It’s the voice of kings and reunions. 

Curly brown hair, delicate features, friendly brown eyes, petite frame. But there is no silken gown trailing in her wake, nor wrinkles settling deep into her flesh, nor a heavy signet ring fidgeting between her fingers. Instead, there’s a youthful, teary-eyed smile, and a purple sweater.

“Merlin!” she shouts, but it isn’t out of exasperation or fear. It isn’t the way she shouted when she was afraid of losing him, or when she was frustrated over something stupid he’d done. It’s the way she shouted when he finally returned from burying Arthur, when he came home from months of searching for Aithusa’s body.

It’s the voice of queens and comfort.

The rest are here too. Gaius, Lancelot, Leon, Elyan, Gwaine, Percival. They’re here, and they’re running up to greet him like he’s their golden ticket. Like they’ve waited their whole lives for this exact moment. 

Merlin knows _he_ has, at least. 

He rises to his feet, not bothering to wipe his tears or dry off the lakewater or sand stuck to his shins. He runs towards them, runs and laughs and smiles, and for the first time in his life he does not hate himself for being happy.

The moment Arthur - _Arthur_ , the real _Arthur_ , the genuine article, can you believe it?! - hugs him, Merlin’s life explodes with colour. As though the last 1500 years have been spent suffering in the throes of a drab, grey pallette, and now Arthur has returned and now there is _oxygen_ and _life_ on Earth, and Merlin can finally breathe again. 

Merlin practically tackles him to the ground, and Arthur grips him tight, and they twirl and laugh and weep like they’re the only people on the beach - nay, _the world_. And Arthur grabs him by the sides of his face, and his cheeks tingle as though they’ve never been touched before, and their foreheads press together with an air of laughter wafting between their mouths.

“You’re here,” Merlin breathes, disbelieving.

“You’ll never be alone again, old friend,” Arthur vows, and does not say a word when Merlin’s face falls into Arthur’s shoulder, nor when Merlin quivers and shakes with tears long overdue. Because Arthur’s right. He’s not alone anymore. And it is _beautiful_.

And then there are the knights, who all grab hold of him like he’ll slip away if they let go. Which is fine, because he holds them just as tightly (if not tighter). 

And then there’s Gaius, who can only pull him close and whisper, “My boy, oh my boy."

And then there’s Gwen, who kisses him on the forehead as thick and heavy tears rain down her cheeks and jaw, and there are tears everywhere and it’s messy and raw, but that’s just the way they like it. 

“I’m so sorry,” she sobs, like she’s just confessed to killing his sea urchin. “I promised I wouldn’t be late but there was traffic and then Gwaine got carsick, and -”

Merlin laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs. Laughs like Leon before he died. Laughs like he and Gwen on those parapets. Laughs like Arthur whenever a stupid joke passed between them. There is no ache in his chest to remind him that this happiness will not last, that in a few moments it will be gone and leave only longing and pain in its wake. There is no bitterness in his heart that maybe he doesn’t deserve to be happy, that he’s disrespecting the dead by laughing in their absence, that maybe the reason he’s happy is because he’s a monster. No, those thoughts are gone from his mind.

There’s just pure, unblemished happiness. Happiness and _love_.

From here, there will be tears. There will be pain and crying and shouting as he fesses up to all his crimes, as he lays all his wounds bare for them to see. But there will be comfort. There will be late-night movie marathons and cosplay conventions and burnt toast. There will be birthday parties and nightmares and staring up at a sky full of stars, vowing to each other that whatever the future holds, they’ll hold it together. There will be missed flights, messy arguments, and traumatic stress.

Life will not be perfect. Happiness does not last forever. He will be sad, and he will cry, and he will curl up and wish he had the power to die. And he’s alright with that. Because happiness, however fleeting, will follow after those dark times - and that’s enough for him. 

Because his friends will be there, reaching out a hand and pulling him out of whatever dark rut he’s fallen into. Because he’s not alone anymore. 

“You’re right on time,” he says, and he means it.


End file.
